NFL Corruption and Political Affiliation

As a person who grew up watching football, this is a difficult article to write. When I was a kid, I use to love staying up late on Sunday nights, watching the highlights of all the touchdowns and great plays made throughout the games. I must admit, I was lucky to grow up in the New England area and was able to watch the Patriots win so many games. I, of course, idolized Tom Brady because he appeared to be a person with good character and integrity. Obviously, his credibility was impacted by deflate gate. Whether you agree or disagree when it comes to Brady intentionally cheating, one thing is clear: The way the National Football League treated this case was completely over the top. Then again, this is the case with this organization.

The National Football League brought the case all the way to the Supreme Court. Why? For starters, the owners of all the teams have the commissioner in their pocket. Ultimately the NFL made the excuse that they wanted to protect the integrity of the league. Let’s think about this statement in terms of their actions over recent years. The NFL has had a history of players who have been involved in domestic violence. A player by the name of Ray Rice knocked his intimate female partner out cold in a hotel elevator a few years back. It was only made public when a video went viral that was leaked from a media outlet. Often paparazzi and tabloid companies, like TMZ, will leak these videos. When the video went public the commissioner only gave him a 2-game suspension. After public backlash, he was released by his respective team and is no longer in the NFL. Greg Hardy was another player who was involved in a domestic violence incident, when he used physical force on a female. He was released by the team he was playing for at the time but was eventually allowed to be picked up by the Dallas Cowboys.

In more recent years, a quarterback by the name of Colin Kaepernick used the National Anthem as a platform to illustrate non-violent protest. His intent was to highlight social and racial injustice for African Americans in the United States, when it came to law enforcement. What happened? This sort of protesting caused unrest among the general public. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, put pressure on the NFL to force the stop of kneeling during the anthem. The result was that teams are too afraid of the criticism and Colin Kaepernick was released. No team to this day will pick him up and he is out of the league for demonstrating peaceful protest. The idea that he was defaming the US flag by kneeling is absurd. Kaepernick even stated that his intentions were not to insult anyone. It is worthy to note that the people ruling the United States are anything, but righteous. Thus, the hypocrisy is tenfold in this instance.

One of the connections I find interesting between the United States and the NFL is that the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, has political ties. His father-in-law is Samuel K. Skinner, an American politician from Chicago who was the former White House Chief of Staff and U.S. Secretary of Treasury under George H.W. Bush. Skinner was involved in the Council of Foreign Relations. This organization has also included many Rockefeller family members. Goodell’s own father, Charles Goodell, replaced Robert Kennedy in the senate, as a result of Kennedy’s assassination. Charles Goodell was appointed by Nelson Rockefeller. Goodell was associated with people who had deep and questionable political ties, including that of the Rockefeller family. This may explain why the NFL gets financial assets from the Pentagon almost every year.

It is very odd how deep the commissioner’s political influence and roots go. Much like the political system in the United States, the NFL smells of corruption. Unfortunately, too many people enjoy watching football. This means that the NFL can be as immoral and corrupt as possible without suffering any consequences.